Vocal Tips For K pop Fans #2: How To Identify Strain And Resonance

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59 thoughts on “Vocal Tips For K pop Fans #2: How To Identify Strain And Resonance”

Nice! I’ve been taking singing lessons since fall 2013 to correct airiness and tension from a lifetime of bad habits and am finally loosening up better, still working on it. Your video makes it really easy to tell the difference, I will use that information when listening back to my recorded lessons in addition to other live performances. Wonder if you could post tips on how to differentiate auto-tuned recordings sometime? Still waiting patiently for Kyuhyun’s updated analysis, too 😉 Thanks Ahmin!

Oh really? Auto-tuned? Like with pitch change or the robotic sounding one? Because I’ve never had anybody ask me that before or have this kind of issue ._. Interesting question though and thank you so much! I’ll be sure to always make these videos as helpful as possible!

Please teach how to mix better and get rid of nasality and extend the middle range. Btw, ahmin, whats the difference between belting and mixing cause some people said belting is chest voice at high notes while mixing is a mix between chest and head.. can u explain??

OMG! I feel like this was made for me! Thank you so much this helps me so much. If you saw my comment on YouTube it’s true. It’s very hard for me, I make my voice heavier than it actually is. So I had to change my voice. I know I’m still young but my vocal type is so hard to determinate.

Jonalyn is the real diva in the Philippines. LOL. Sadly, considering the trend not just in the Philippines but also in the whole world, those who are technically good are underrated. Only few of them are actually in the limelight.

By the way, what can you say about Jona’s lower extension? I think, she needs to improve this area. LOL. (She can sing 3.3 octaves, though. If I’m not mistaken, F3 – B6, and she has an extensive falsetto range.)

Thanks to this video I can more or less identify if a vocalist is supporting or not in the mixed register/upper register. Do you have tips on identifying if someone is supporting in the lower range? Like how do I know if a note is airy or sung with lowered larynx?

though i have been learning for long time, i still cannot identify resonance, is there something wrong with me? i still can’t understand the “ringing” voice. resonance means someone can support, but support doesn’t means that’s resonance. so frustrating.. i just somewhat knew when someone relax, support (i hope) and strain (whiny, kind of voice like nails on blackboard, voice on the throat, etc thanks to you). strains so easy to find when singer has weak tehnique, but it become difficult when someone has good tehnique.

It’s a lot easier to hear and feel these things when you’re practicing singing yourself, then the quality becomes a lot clearer to you. There’s nothing wrong with you because I don’t know how you’ve been practicing your hearing.

i practicing with listening people sing, few video from youtube really help me, or when i heard people sing wherever i go. whose strain, whose support, but actually when singer show up and they began sang, i just imagine that was me. that’s then i know do i feels relax or maybe not, my voice able to opened and round or not.

Can you try to explain in more detail how to recognize resonance? I can tell when someone is straining vs. supporting, but I can’t tell when someone is supporting with resonance vs. supporting without resonance. (Your video is great!! But it focuses on detecting strain as opposed to detecting resonance when strain isn’t present.)

The only time i’ve been able to definitively recognize resonance is kyuhyun’s part at 3:50 in Bolero (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rvGsQmOflw), and that’s just because his voice rings super loudly in that large concert hall lol…

It’s hard to explain cause yes I suppose I haven’t made a video about what resonance is. I’ve made a video about pushing but it didn’t focus on loud singing vs resonance, it was loud vs powerful. Resonance is a quality that’s round, like literally I see circles floating out of a vocalist’s mouth or I envision them and the sound kind of warms up while rounding itself out, while supported singing is clear but it doesn’t have that kind of inner echo quality. The inner echo quality can be confusing if you hear reverb where it actually makes the voice have an extra echo.

Also, TOTALLY unrelated, but I just had to share (though you may have heard of him already), but this guy called Dimash Kudaibergen can hit a freaking D8 (and as low as F2) O____o Did not realize that was humanly possible for a male….not to mention he’s only 23 and as handsome as any idol star… (S.Coups doppelganer lol)

wow, i’ve been reading a lot about vocal technique recently and have focused only on pop/ballad singers, but now I suddenly feel like i need to go listen to a ton of opera just to ogle at how impeccable and >>>excellent their singing is

I think that’s just for the really high belts though, like the ones outside the range of a normal tenor. I can def hear strain when he’s belting in the soprano range lol, but he sounds supported and i would argue with excellent technique when singing in a tenor range (perhaps minus some performances where you can hear the fatigue from constant belting at concerts)

I’m afraid I can’t agree. I don’t hear support even when he’s singing around E4 ~ F#4. It’s the same kind of shallow quality Changmin, Lee Soo and many other light singing tenors in Kpop have as well. This quality is somewhat easy to get away with when you’re singing light and I can see why you’d think it’s supported but don’t be fooled by the shallow light singing. That’s not support.

Actually I do take it back that he doesn’t support at all. There’s support going on but tension creeps in too, especially with his vibrato. Around 2:10 I hear tension and then the head voice is pushed, and then 2:50 is just strain. The thing is, he’s actually better for sure than those other light singing tenors but he has some very odd flaws in his technique. I wonder if he’s trained at all or just picked it up on his own. Aside from how he sings in head voice, he doesn’t sing in a classical way. He’s very pop.

Haha yeah, my guess is that he’s very naturally gifted in terms of vocal physiology and as a result learned to create the sounds of classical singing early on without a ton of training, resulting in some odd habits. Wikipedia (though ofc that’s often not reliable) says he was classically trained / had parents who are also singers, but I imagine its harder to get rigorous classical training in Kazakhstan that meets all Western standards of vocal technique. Also, he’s definitely aiming for the “popera” genre as opposed to pure classical singing, citing Michael Jackson as his biggest role model and all. Maybe now that he has more global reach, he’ll get more rigorous training…or maybe it’ll just fatigue his voice / encourage unhealthy belting ><

Also I promise LAST thing about Dimash, but i found a video where he’s being taught not to raise his larynx, and he sounds SO much better by the end.

Now Im feeling inspired to really work on my own singing technique haha!! It’s like the feeling I got when I heard Taemin improve, which pushed me to try learning to sing a while ago…and reading this blog has helped make clearer a lot of things my teacher has been telling me! so just a word of gratitude, that all of your advice and tips and analyses are really helping a lot and I’m sure inspiring many others to keep singing and improving as well!! 🙂

I really hate how nowadays we see réactions from professional vocal coaches on YT to Dimash’s vocal performances and don’t even really bother ONCE to mention the lack of support present in his singing. I don’t know if they really want to keep the viewers dumb by praising the light approach he takes to reach (with massive strain) those higher notes whilst totally ignoring the VERY OBVIOUS weakness of his chest and mix voice.

Yeah he’s hot, has good pitch, agility, decent pronounciation and all but he’s not at all qualified for the « operatic role » that fans claimed he’s been offered to play. Idk where they gotTo this source from but the mainstream is being, very miseducated about Dimash’s UNHEALTHY vocal approach. He’s lucky that he’s got a large range (would make a good haute-contre, never will he be a countertenor since the latter is a Baritone singing head voice)

We can say the same thing for Christina Aguilera, for example. Huge rage capable of “taking them to school,” but huge amount of straining. To be fair, Christina does possess support in a small portion of her range, I agree with you that just neglecting and not bringing up issues with vocalists from these so-called “vocal experts” are only fueling the fire of ignorance. Also, these fanboys and fangirls must learn to accept reality and truth and admit NO vocalist is perfect, including their favourite ones. But of course, many people take sweetest, vain lies over cold, hard truth…